Cigar in mouth, Gavrolles strolled leisurely along the streets in
the direction of Regent Circus. Arrived in Waterloo Place he found the
pavement thronged with those painted faces,
“Which only smile by night beneath the gas,
and saw what, to a man with any pity in his soul, is the saddest sight
beneath the sun.
Bright jets of gas were flaming over the Criterion Restaurant, the night
houses on every side were opening their foul jaws, and from the darkness
of every street and lane were fluttering forth the moths of night.
Painted and bedizened creatures, fluttering gladly in the gaslight;
some faint and feeble, as if already scorched with the destroying flame;
others splendidly merry, with the new flush of the infernal brightness
upon them; many beautiful beyond measure, with faces as pure and sweet
as those of little children that know not sin.
With the smile and swagger of one who knew his company, Gavrolles made
his way from group to group, accosted from time to time by some passing
figure, and more than once plucked softly by the sleeve. Once, as he
paused under a lamplight, a slight form, clad in the thinnest of silk,
paused before him, and a baby face leered hideously up into his; but he
pushed the shape softly aside, and swaggered on. To him, as to many of
his class, the sight was quite proper and pleasant; his fine nerves were
not shocked, his noble soul was not sadly stirred; indeed, such a man
might walk confidently by the side of the very flames of Hell, and
be conscious of nothing but the picturesque lights and shadows of the
dreadful place. Yes, for as Swedenborg has sublimely guessed, Hell is
Heaven to the devilish nature, and the penalty of the morally damned is
not to _know_ that it is Hell.
Not far away, that very night, walked another man, one of nobler fibre,
with the shuddering sense of infinite pity and despair. He, too, was
familiar with the sight of moral leprosy and spiritual disease, and as
he gazed on those painted things, all and each of whom were infected
with the _goitre_ of incurable infamy, he felt weary of the world. ‘So
long as this is possible,’ thought Edgar Sutherland, ‘how can the dead
Christ rise?’
Crossing the street at the Quadrant, Sutherland saw, standing in the
lamplight of the corner, two figures, one an elderly woman with a face
swollen and deformed by drink, the other a wild-looking girl, poorly
clad, coughing violently as if in sharp physical pain. As he was passing
he heard them speak to each other in French; he paused and listened.
‘You are a fool, Adèle,’ said the elder woman. ‘Come and have some
brandy--you will be all right then.’
The girl laughed hoarsely and uttered a coarse oath, then the cough
seized her again with a paroxysm so violent that her whole frame shook
like a leaf.
‘Devil take the cough,’ she said. ‘I shall have to go into the hospital
after all.’
A few more words passed, and then the elder woman, impatient to reach
the bar of some neighbouring public-house, ran across the street.
The young girl was feebly following, when Sutherland stepped forward,
lifting his hat.
‘Good evening, mademoiselle,’ he said, speaking in her own language. ‘I
am afraid you are ill?’
Something in the tone startled her, and the gentle voice, the respectful
gesture, acted like a charm. She replied courteously, with a polite
inclination of the head, ‘I am not very well, monsieur; I have been ill
for some time.’
‘I am very sorry. If you will take my advice you will go home--you are
not fit to be in the streets.’
She gazed at him strangely, and then said--
‘Pardon, monsieur, but you are not a Frenchman?’
‘No.’
‘I think I have seen your face before? You have been abroad,--in
Brussels?’
As she spoke, something in her form and face seemed familiar; with an
exclamation he took her by the arm, and drew her close under the light
of the lamp.
‘Is it possible?’ he cried. ‘Adèle Lambert? Do you remember me?’
That she did so was now clear; for with a hysterical cry she shrank from
him and hid her face in her hands. Two years before, in Brussels, he had
found this poor creature, then a pretty girl, in the power of infamous
people, who had decoyed her to ruin; with infinite trouble and great
pecuniary expense he had released her and restored her to her friends;
and when he had last heard of her she seemed on the threshold of a new
and purer life. And now, this was the sequel! He shuddered in horror, as
he looked upon her spectral face.
‘My poor girl,’ he said gently, ‘what brought you to England?’
Then she told him, with many tears; for the sight of him and the
remembrance of his former charity touched the deep springs of sorrow in
her poor outcast soul. She had indeed gone home, but not to stay. Soon
after her return her mother had died, and her father had taken another
wife; her life was not happy, and the taint of her shame still clung to
her; and at last, in despair, she had drifted back to Brussels, finding
all ways of life closed to her but one.
‘And since then, monsieur. I have suffered so much. I was never strong,
and now I am--as you see. A year ago they took me to the hospital in my
own country--would to God I had died there! but I came out, and after
that I went from bad to worse. Two months ago I came with that woman
to England. I thought no one would know me here, and now--is it not
strange?--I meet with _you_.’
As she spoke, another figure came sauntering up in the full light of the
lamp. It was Gavrolles, indifferent and happy, smoking his cigar.
The moment the girl’s eyes fell upon him, her manner changed; and,
to Sutherland’s astonishment, she uttered a cry, and rushed up to the
newcomer.
‘Let me look at your face,’ she cried. ‘Quick! It is he!’ And she clung
with strange fury to Gavrolles, who in vain attempted to shake her off.
‘Let me go,’ he said in English The woman is drunk. I will call the
police.’
With a fierce shriek she raised her hand and struck at his face with her
clenched fist.
‘You devil! You devil!’ she cried in French. ‘I have been waiting so
long to see you, and now at last we meet. If I had a knife I would stab
you. It is I--Adèle.’ ‘I do not know you!’
‘It is false. You are a liar and a devil.’
And she struck him in the face with both hands. Livid and trembling,
Gavrolles threw her off; she fell back screaming, and would have
fallen had not Sutherland caught her in his arms. While he held her she
struggled madly, hysterical with an overmastering passion. A crowd
of outcast women and well-dressed men already surrounded them, and a
policeman, pushing his way into the circle, roughly demanded the cause
of the disturbance.
Gavrolles forced a laugh.
‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘Only a drunken woman, as you see.’
The policeman approached the girl and touched her on the shoulder.
‘Come now, just you move on, or I’ll have to run you in,’ he said; and
as she spoke rapidly in her own language, he shook his sagacious
head and continued, ‘We don’t want none of your parleyvoo. Leave the
gentleman alone, d’ye hear, and move on.’
‘The woman is not drunk,’ said Sutherland. ‘She is ill, and--look, she
has fainted!’
Overmastered by her excitement, she had indeed fallen into a sort of
faint or fit. Sutherland supported her gently, while the crowd, with
cries and murmurs, pressed close! round them. In the commotion which
ensued Gavrolles slipped away, stepped into a hansom, and was driven
off.
‘Keep back--give her air!’ cried Sutherland. ‘Does any one know where
she lives?’
At this moment the woman whom he had first seen in her company stepped
forward.
‘Yes, monsieur, we lodge together. Look up, Adèle! What ails you?’
‘Help me to take her home,’ said Sutherland, in a low voice.
The policeman called a cab, and Sutherland raised the girl in his arms
and placed her in it; then he stepped in himself, followed by the other
woman.
They drove to a wretched lodging-house in Gerrard Street, Soho, a dismal
fetid den, presided over by a hideous old Frenchwoman, who at first
refused to take her in.
‘You’d better drive her to the hospital,’ said this person, blocking the
doorway. ‘She owes me two weeks’ rent already, and I can’t take care of
her.’
The sight of Sutherland’s purse, however, worked wonders; and with many
protestations of sympathy the hag suffered the girl to be carried to
a room upstairs. The fainting fit had by this time passed away, to be
followed by an attack of hysterical weeping and coughing. Sutherland
shuddered, for as she coughed, and spat he saw on her lips a thin tinge
of crimson blood.
He had her well cared for that night, and the next day he called with a
physician, and found her in bed, wild and ghastly, as if she had not got
long to live.
‘Ah! monsieur, forgive me!’ she cried, with a sad smile, reaching out
her wasted hand. ‘I was _méchante_ last night, but to see that man made
me mad. I think I should have killed him had I been able. I was good and
_gentille_ when he first knew me, and he coaxed me away from my friends
and took me to that evil place where you found me. But for him I might
have been a good woman--you comprehend.’
‘Do not speak of it now. This gentleman is a doctor, I have brought him
to see you.’
‘All, monsieur, how good you are!’ sobbed the girl, with a look of
ineffable gratitude; and she raised his hand to her feverish lips and
kissed it.
*****
Edgar Sutherland was not the man to do any good deed by halves. Thanks
to his generosity, Adèle Lambert was removed to a better lodging, and
comfortably nursed; the doctor’s opinion being that the disease, though
certainly mortal, would progress slowly, and that much might be done to
alleviate her distressing condition. Not content with assisting her
with money, the young man visited her almost daily, and did his best to
lighten her miserable lot; talked to her cheerfully, read to her; and
without obtruding any moral or religious sentiment, contrived to turn
her bewildered and despairing thoughts in the direction of some heavenly
compassion.
In the course of these kindly visits he learned the whole story of the
unfortunate girl’s connection with the French adventurer, whom he
had again recognised. That story cannot be told here; it would be too
shocking for a society that hushes up revolting truths, and bases
its moral security on the existence of an evil which philosophers
contemplate with tranquillity, and men of the world with pleasant
cynicism. Not even in the pages of a fiction with a purpose can an
English writer print the record of what is at the best an accursed
human sacrifice, a trade to which the slave trade was venial; a social
abomination which destroys the body and too often obliterates the
germinating soul.
I know well how, in discussing this question, philosophy and
sentimentalism are at issue; how statistics have been twisted to show
that actual seduction is rare, and rarest upon the man’s side; how
the majority of the lost live happily, healthily, and long; how their
existence is a necessity of civilisation, the security of virtue, the
protection of the household, the safeguard of the morals of the State.
Well, I say with Sutherland, God help our civilisation if this be so! So
long as such a canker exists, so long as the moral holocaust continues,
there is no hope for any living woman, and the Kingdom of Heaven upon
earth, which poets have dreamed of, is whole eternities away.